Now and then, in the early days, he had been conscious of a desire
to go back and try to reconstruct his past again. Later on he knew
that if he were ever to fill up the gap in his life, it would be
easier in that environment of once familiar things. But in the
first days he had been totally dependent on David, and money was
none too plentiful. Later on, as the new life took hold, as he
went to medical college and worked at odd clerical jobs in
vacations to help pay his way, there had been no chance. Then the
war came, and on his return there had been the practice, and his
knowledge that David's health was not what it should have been.

But as time went on he was more and more aware that there was in
him a peculiar shrinking from going back, an almost apprehension.
He knew more of the mind than he had before, and he knew that not
physical hardship, but mental stress, caused such lapses as his.
But what mental stress had been great enough for such a smash?
His father's death?

Strain and fear, said the new psychology. Fear? He had never found
himself lacking in courage. Certainly he would have fought a man
who called him a coward. But there was cowardice behind all such
conditions as his; a refusal of the mind to face reality. It was
weak. Weak. He hated himself for that past failure of his to face
reality.

But that night, sitting by David's bed, he faced reality with a
vengeance. He was in love, and he wanted the things that love
should bring to a normal man. He felt normal. He felt,
strengthened by love, that he could face whatever life had to bring,
so long as also it brought Elizabeth.